Jan. 10th, 2017

Relaunching this again for a future ‘not-post’, but something better! Thank you to everyone who continued to send in suggestions. Submit here.

As an addition to the goth/post-punk/alt band masterpost, here’s a list of bands featuring members of color. Most are influential, others new discoveries or future freak gods. Thanks to research and helpful readers, here’s a bit of sick sound suitable for all taste buds:

Goth, dark or industrial:

Creature Feature - Erik X is an evil composer and organ player with a special gift for raising the dead.

Plastique Noir -the Brazilian band that made the song “Empty Streets” that’s just too dark to handle.

O. Children - contrary to popular belief, Tobi O’Kandi is not, in fact, a black reincarnation of Ian Curtis.

Thrill Kill Kult - sick industrial band with several poc members.

Glorious Din

Android Lust - Shikhee is Bangladeshi, and she makes some of the best industrial music ever heard.

She Past Away

13th Moon

Malice Mizer and Moi Dix Mois

Phaidia

Corrupted - awesome japanese doom/sludge band that are considered super influential in the scene.

Death - not to be confused with the metal band of the same way. Not that you could confuse the members in any way.

Rough Francis - founded by the sons of David Hackney of Death.

Pure Hell - afropunk taken literally.

X-Ray Spex - Poly Styrene was the energy and feel of the band. Actually, she was just energy and feel period. Fun fact: she was also bipolar.

Radkey - Rad.

TMGE - Japanese band named “Thee Michelle Gun Elephant” or as they prefer: JAPANESE BAND NAMED “THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT”.

Tamar Kali - powerful musician, especially known for “Boot”.

The Objex - Feloney Melony’s got a wicked hawk and voice.

Stiffed - Santi White now performs solo as Santigold.

Cerebral Ballzy

Suicidal Tendencies

Midori - great jazz-punk fusion band.

The Redscare

Le Butcherettes - Mexican garage punk band.

Atari Teenage Riot

NOFX

Stalin

The Bags

Dev Hynes - a British musician who started out in a punk band Test Icicles then went solo as a folk/indie musician as Lightspeed Champion and now is doing an electronic/R&B thing as Blood Orange.

L’Arc-en-Ciel - Okay, so these guys are Japan’s other most famous export. These guys got known outside of japan for doing some major anime theme songs (Fullmetal Alchemist, Gundam 00, NANA live action movie, etc) and were the first Japanese act to headline Madison Square Garden (Japanese rock bands really like New York for some reason). Their bassist tetsuya (formally known as tetsu) gets bonus points for being one of Japan’s only out LGBT celebrities (he’s Bi).

Doll$Box

Letlive

The Chariot

Trashtalk

Gogol Bordello - self described as “gypsy punk”. Singer Eugene Hütz is Russian-Ukranian with Romani heritage and born with a ‘stache. Nearly crazier than Little Big and Korpiklaani combined.

Blackfire

The Bots - punk duo made of two brothers.

Bow Wow Wow - IIIIIII Waaaant Caaandy!!!

Love Equals Death

Ritualization - blackened death metal from Orléans, France

Teengenerate

Ten Grand

Letlive

Martin Sorrondeguy - spoke out about US based Latino issues in many of his lyrics and was involved in bands Los Crudos, Limp Wrist and Needles.

Ghost Town

Metal, funk/rap/reggae metal fusion or core:

Blasphemy - Black metal, the biggest irony on earth as Caller of the Storms remains one of the rare black musicians within the genre.

Babymetal - this Japanese trio is more metal than a viking woman on her period in the middle of a battlefield drinking the blood of her enemies to the sound of Immortal…for some at least.

Wicked Wisdom - Will Smith’s wife get a band?? Yes she Will.

Unlocking the Truth - these 13 year olds played in the streets of NYC before they opened for Living Colour.

Sepultura - the founding members are all Brazilian, currently their lead singer (Derrick Green) is black. “Arise” is a massive album of pure metal awesomeness.

Straight Line Stitch

Blood Stain Child

Sasamaso

Tenger Cavalry - a folk metal band based out of Bejing who describe their style as “Mongolian folk metal”. Like this and you’d probably enjoy Ego Fall.

Cthonic - Taiwanese metal band who’s lead singer is also the president for the Taiwanese branch of Amnesty International.Most of their music deals with their goal of an independent Taiwan and they’re really REALLY great.

Myrath

God Forbid

Invasion - a stoner/psych-metal band fronted by a valkyrie space wizard out of London.

Vodun - like invasion, marries punk, psychedelic, and doom metal influenced instrumentals with soul influenced vocals to create a unique and original takes on doom metal.

Sevendust

Animals as Leaders - most suggested band on this list and for good reason.

Veil of Maya

Oceano

Body Count - Ice T’s metal band rules. It would be a little tastier with ice cubes though.

Hirax - pioneering thrash/speed metal band (with hardcore influences). Katon De Pena is one of the most distinctive vocalists of the then-burgeoning California metal scene. Though they never achieved the success of some of their contemporaries like Metallica or Slayer, they have long been an insiders’ favorite and cited as an influence by bands ranging from Napalm Death to Cannibal Corpse to Darkthrone.

Metallica - their first lead guitarist was Lloyd Grant. Here he is in their first recording.

Gevolt - Yiddish band from Israel.

The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza

Gridlink

X Japan - Probably Japan’s most famous metal export. These guys are the reason Visual Kei (basically Japan’s gothic metal scene) exists. All those flashy JRock bands wouldn’t exist without X Japan. They also recently just played a huge show at Madison Square Garden.

Maximum the Hormone - Also known as “the guys that did that weird opening and ending to death note”, MTH do a fantastic combination of metal, punk, and even pop. The best part about MTH is that their lyrics don’t make sense even when translated so you can just have mindless fun listening to them even if you understand Japanese.

Suffocation - one of the most influential death metal acts of all time. Terrance Hobbs’ incredible mastery of the guitar allowed the band to blend complex technicality into the genre without sacrificing raw brutality.

Versailles Philharmonic Quintet

Suicide Silence

The Crimson Armada

For Today

Glass Cloud

Heaven in Her Arms

Here comes the Kraken

Issues

Periphery

Reflections

System of a Down

Fear Nuttin Band

Year of the Dragon - founder was a member of Fishbone.

Dir En Grey

Skyharbor

Spineshank

Coal Chamber

Ill Niño

Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in Dilapidation (FID) - Formed in Tokyo. Rad ladies playing some super hard grindcore.

Sarcofago - Brazilian band

Acrassicauda - Iraqi heavy metal. There is a film called “Heavy Metal in Baghdad”, about the band. Another documentary called Global Metal, which is by the same director as Heavy Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, is highly recommended.

Sigh - one of the first japanese black mack metal bands led by a fierce lady.

Sabbat - Japanese black/thrash.

Blood Stain Child - rather epic sounding Japanese metal band with contrasting vocals and instrumentals.

Bleed the Pigs - great band with a singer who has an awesome colorful fro.

Motherjane

Jimi Hendrix - duh.

Asian Dub Foundation

BIS (Brand-New Idol Society) - considered “alternative Japanese idols”, and have done some amazing things including recruiting a new member who was rumored to be a high school girl and turned out to be Junko Koshino, a famous fashion designer who is 74 yrs old. Their song + video for MURA-MURA is excellent.

Go Betty Go - chicano rock, “pop punk”. Several of their songs are in Spanish.

Melt-Banana - Japanese noise rock band.

Deftones

Rage Against the Machine

TV on the Radio

Rain Machine

Bloc Party - singer is gay and black.

Little Dragon

Asobi Seksu

Blonde Redhead

The Go! Team

CSS

The English Beat

Kenna

Mono

One Ok Rock

ELLEGARDEN - JAPAN’S BEST 90s/EARLY 2000s POP PUNK ROCK EXPORT I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING. Part of what contributes to this is Takeshi Hosomi (singer/rhythm guitarist) writing ¾ of the band’s discography in perfect english. Unfortunately they went on hiatus in 2006, but that spawned two more fantastic bands: Takeshi does experimental progressive indie in the HIATUS (its the same guy I swear), and guitarist Shinichi Ubukata formedNothing’s Carved In Stone which is basically a Japanese alt. rock supergroup.

The Hiatus

Nothing’s Carved in Stone

Shonen Knife - you can’t talk about japanese girl rock without the literal originators of the movement/popularity. Because Kurt Cobain said he listened them, a HUGE surge of all girl bands started popping up over Japan.

O’Brother

The Pillows - alt rock band from Hokkaido.

Set it Off

The Novembers

Shiva En Exil

Guns N’ Roses - Slash.

(Hed) PE - (or Planet Earth) original sound described as “G-Punk”, a fusion of punk rock and gangsta rap.

Soundgarden

She Wants Revenge

Skip the Use - with influence from various genres and a black lead.

Elsiane - Formed in Montreal. Fronted by Elsieanne Caplette. Trip-hop/downtempo.

Fall Out Boy’s bassist Pete Wentz English/German and Afro-Jamaican.

Sonic Boom Six

Cibo Matto - real cool duo.

My Vitriol

Buck Tick

Wormrot - grindcore from Singapour.

Toe - post rock from Japan.

Guitar Wolf - “Jet Rock n’ roll”.

Gazette

Kanon Wakeshima

The Coup - Yesssss.

Street Sweeper Social Club

Merchant Ships - post hardcore.

The Skints - reggae/dub/punk fusion.

White Town - bzangy deserves WAY more recognition! You’ve probably already heard “I Could Never be Your Woman.”